In a continuing effort to improve the quality of shipping fruits, I, the inventor, typically hybridize a large number of peach, nectarine, plum, apricot, and cherry seedlings each year. I also grow a smaller number of open pollinated seeds of each of these fruits. The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of interspecific tree which has been denominated varietally as ‘Blackred XI’.
During a typical blooming season I isolate as seed parents both individual and groups of different plum trees by covering them with screen houses. A hive of bees is placed inside each such house, and bouquets to provide pollen from different plum, apricot, and interspecific plum-apricot hybrid trees are placed in buckets near the trees approximately every two days for the duration of the bloom. During 2003 one such house containing an unpatented purple plum, code named ‘42P1156’, was crossed by me in this manner. To pollinate this purple plum, I selected bouquets from several sources of apricot and interspecific plum-apricot hybrid trees without keeping specific written details. Upon reaching maturity the fruit from this plum tree was harvested and the seeds were removed, cracked, stratified and germinated as a group with the label “H12”. They were grown as seedlings on their own root in my greenhouse and upon reaching dormancy transplanted to a cultivated area of my experimental orchard located near Le Grand, Calif. in Merced County (San Joaquin Valley). During the summer of 2006 the claimed variety was selected by me as a single plant from the group of seedlings described above. Subsequent to origination of the present variety of interspecific tree, I asexually reproduced it by budding and grafting in the experimental orchard described above, and such reproduction of plant and fruit characteristics were true to the original plant in all respects. The reproduction of the variety included the use of ‘Nemaguard’ (unpatented) rootstock upon which the present variety was true to type.
The present variety is similar to its seed parent, ‘42P1156’, by being self-unfruitful and by producing fruit that is purple to black in skin color, firm in texture, and globose in shape, but is distinguished therefrom by producing fruit that is pink to red in flesh color instead of yellow, that is much sweeter in flavor, and that matures about thirty days later.
The present variety is similar to ‘September Yummy’ plum (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 14,220) by being self-unfruitful and by producing fruit that ripens in the late season, that is firm in texture, and that is very good in flavor, but is distinguished therefrom by producing fruit that is mostly black in skin color instead of red, that is more heavily red in flesh color, that is clingstone instead of semi-freestone, and that matures about thirty days earlier. It is to be noted that the patent for ‘September Yummy’ plum describes a first pick date of Sep. 10, 2002. Since the filing of that patent, it has been established that the average commercial first pick date is closer to October 10th.
The present variety is most similar to ‘Blackred XII’ interspecific tree (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 20,892) by being self-unfruitful and by producing fruit that is clingstone in type, that is mostly globose in shape, that matures in the late season, that is very good in flavor, that is mostly black in skin color, and that is mostly red in flesh color, but is distinguished therefrom by producing fruit that is somewhat larger in size and that matures about two weeks earlier.